


from time to time

by softiee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29561205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softiee/pseuds/softiee
Summary: A collection of short dinluke tumblr prompts.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	from time to time

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be added as new chapters are posted. 
> 
> _Prompt: It’s hard for Luke to accept help. Din knows which care methods are “acceptable”. ___

It was hard seeing him like this. For the most part, Luke was usually the rational one. When situations would get messy and people would start shouting matches, Luke was the one who kept a cool level head and mediated between the parties. Din guesses it was part of being a Jedi: keepers of the peace, unmovable and imperturbable. And it was true for Luke most of the time, Din thought there was nobody else in the galaxy capable of calming down his sister and brother-in-law when their regular arguments got a little too out of hand. He was cool, rational, a stable current flowing through the chaos of everyone else.

Which was the more scary when a situation finally managed to make Luke lose his control. 

He wouldn’t shout or scream, he wouldn’t lash out in mindless violence. No, Din would know when Luke had lost his temper because he would go real still and quiet –unnatural for someone who seemed to be always on the move, always thinking ahead, always with his head amongst the clouds. 

There were very rare, the moments when Luke got so mad that he shut down completely. It was painful to see him like that, as if all life had been drained out of him. And it was worse when he was the reason for it. 

Not many things could get Luke angry. Annoyed or irritated? Sure, for someone as passionate as Luke almost anything could be a reason to jump into a friendly argument. He was the twin brother to the most terrifying person Din had ever seen angry in his life, Senator Leia Organa, who could make men piss themselves in fear with just her words. It was natural that he had some of that passion for discussion as well. But the things that would make him retrieve back into a shell and hide from everyone else were very few. 

And one of them was Din. 

To love someone is to give them power over you, so much power that they could eventually destroy you. That was one of the hardest lessons he had learned during his years with Luke. Love is mutually assured destruction. 

He would never do something to hurt Luke –not intentionally. But it was inevitable. Din had accepted a long time ago that Luke was someone with a long and complicated past, some of which he knew, some of which he didn’t need to know. He loved the man he was today, not the man he had once been. And sometimes he would trigger something –a memory, an old wound, a sensitive topic– and instead of arguing with him over it, Luke would shut down and leave. 

It was incredibly frustrating. Mostly because as Din had been raised –Mandalorian, a proud warrior– problems were resolved through conflict. There was no hiding the problem, you either start the fight or you finish it. It was probably not the best way to confront all types of problems, but at least it avoided secrets and resentment. If you had a problem with someone you would face it head on. Honesty before anything else. 

It had taken some time for Din to learn that Luke wasn’t being dishonest when he hid from a particular problem. He was simply scared. And being scared scared him. There were a lot of layers of complicated feelings twisted around certain issues that Din sometimes felt too simple minded to understand. Jedi and their weird relationship with human emotion. 

But it was also… trauma. Din had a very clear suspicion of who had hurt Luke so deeply he felt incapable of expressing true anger. If the guy wasn’t dead already, he would put him in the ground again himself for all the unspeakable things he had done to his children. 

Which was why when Luke came back from his short trip to Naboo, to meet his mother’s side of the family, descending from his X-Wing unnaturally quiet and stiff, not answering any of his questions and only to disappear an hour later inside his library, Din knew something had gone very wrong. 

He had offered to be there for him, of course. But Luke had refused. He would often do that. Something about growing up in Tatooine where everyone would fend for themselves and then be forced to be the martyr for the entire Galaxy would turn someone into a little bit of an omnipotent asshole who refused help at every turn. It was something Din would regularly call him out on, playfully, and receive jabs about his emotional indigestion and exaggerated pride in return. It was fine. Marriage was about calling each other out on your bullshit. But Din had grown up a Mandalorian, where community wasn’t a sentiment, but a duty. Helping others, especially your own clan, was incredibly important. So, being married to a very independent, self fulfilling and self sacrificing Jedi was a headache more often than not. 

But marriage was also about compromise, so Din had let him go alone on his trip. In retrospect, that had been a mistake. And now his husband was clearly hurting, hiding behind his books like they would protect him from the pain of confronting antagonistic family members, and Din would help him whether he liked it or not. 

He had the whole process down to a science. After so much time, it was to be expected. Instead of going to him directly, Din would very subtly open the door to the library and leave it ajar. Then, he would go to the kitchen and start preparing a special soup recipe he had learned from Peli back on Tatooine, that Din knew it reminded Luke of his childhood with his Aunt and Uncle. After a few minutes the smell would coax Luke out of his cave and he would try to steal little meat pieces from the pot that Din would pretend to get angry about. If it wasn’t very late, Grogu would also emerge from the depths of the house and cuddle up sleepy with Luke, who would then feed him the pieces he had stolen from the soup. They would eat then in silence, carefully enjoying each other’s company. And when he was ready, Luke would talk. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly as he gently brushed his fingers over the peachy fuzz of Grogu’s baby hair. The kid was dead to the world, sleeping comfortably in his arms. 

Din nodded, but kept silent to lead him to continue. After a few moments, Luke sighed tiredly. 

“I don’t know what I expected,” he murmured. “Everyone who knew him keeps telling me how much I look like my dad, and the Naberries probably think –no, they _know_ _–_ that he probably killed her.”

His voice broke off and Din fought the urge to get up and involve him in a hug. Luke still needed space. 

“Of course seeing me in person would upset them,” Luke continued. “I just… I guess I was so happy to meet more people from my mom’s side of the family that I…” 

He trailed off, his eyes starting to fill with tears. Luke blinked up at the ceiling trying to stop them from spilling out. 

“It’s not fair,” Din said firmly. “You’re not your father. You know that, and they know that.” He got up from the chair and sat down closer to Luke, who had lost the battle to the tears and was now openly crying. “It’s going to hurt you anyway.”

He was being blunt and he knew it. He didn’t know how to be any different, really. But it was also what Luke needed to hear. No more half-truths, no more riddles, no more disdain disguised as compliments. Just honesty, and the truth. 

“It would have been nice to have them, yes,” Din conceded. “But you don’t _need_ them. Family is what you make of it. You have Leia, you have Han, Ben and Chewie. You have your students, you have Grogu. You have me.” 

Luke jumped into his arms, tears now running freely. Grogu stirred between their arms, and cooed sleepily at them when he felt the storm of emotions that Luke was probably projecting. Din stroked his little back softly, reassuring him that everything would be fine. 

“As long as you need me, as long as you need us, we’ll be here.”


End file.
